Thomas Vinterberg Lines Up Submarine Movie ‘Kursk’ And Danish Movie That Will Be “A Celebration Of Alcohol”

Thomas Vinterberg Lines Up Submarine Movie 'Kursk' And Danish Movie That Will Be "A Celebration Of Alcohol"

Thomas Vinterbergis in the midst of a particularly productive streak. Last summer his lovely “Far From The Madding Crowd” was released, his Danish-language “The Commune” just opened in Denmark last week, and he’s got two more projects on the way.

First up is something quite different for the director we usually associate with character driven films. Deadline reports Vinterberg will direct the submarine drama “Kursk,” based on Robert Moore‘s book, “A Time To Die.” It tells the true story of the titular Russian submarine which sank in the Barents Sea in 2000, and the fight for survival by the 23 sailors on board. Here’s the book synopsis:

At 11:28 a.m. on Saturday, August 12, 2000, high in the Arctic Circle under the roiling surface of the unforgiving Barents Sea, Captain Gennady Lyachin was taking the Kursk, the pride of Russia’s elite Northern Fleet, through the last steps of firing a practice torpedo, part of an elaborate naval exercise. Suddenly, the torpedo exploded in a massive fireball, instantly incinerating all seven men in the submarine’s forward compartment. The horror, however, was just beginning. The full, gripping story of the remarkable drama inside the Kursk and of the desperate rescue efforts has never been told—until now.

Robert Rodat (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Thor 2: The Dark World“) penned the script, and EuropaCorp is pulling it together.

Meanwhile, in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Vinterberg reveals he’s reteaming with screenwriter collaborator Tobias Lindholm (they’ve paired on “The Hunt,” “Submarino,” and “The Commune”) for an untitled movie that will be “a celebration of alcohol.” The director says it will a counterpoint to “the very medical and chaste way of living that is spreading like a disease … It’s an acknowledgement that when you start drinking, the conversation expands. World War II was won by a huge boozer, some of the best literature on the planet was written by drunk people. Drinking, on the one hand makes life grow. On the other hand, you die from it. But the story of how you die from it has been told many times.” Well, it’s certainly an original premise.

No word yet on which project will go first, but there’s certainly some promising stuff on the horizon.